“No,” he answered, with an effort.  “I will not take you with me.”

It cost him a hard struggle to refuse.  There she was, resting against his arm, in the blush and wealth of unspent love, asking to go with him, who loved her better than his life.  But in a quick vision he saw her with him, she who was delicately nurtured and used from childhood to all that care and money could give, he saw her with him, sharing his misery, his hunger and his wandering, suffering silently for love’s sake, but suffering much, and he could not bear the fancied sight.

“I should be in your way,” she said.  “Besides, they would send all over Italy to find me.”

“It is not that,” he answered.  “You might starve.”

She looked up anxiously to his face.

“And you?” she asked.  “Have you no money?”

“No.  How should I have money?  I believe I have one piece of gold and a little silver.  It will be enough to keep me from starvation till I can get work somewhere.  I can live on bread and water, as I have many a time.”

“If I had only thought!” exclaimed Marietta.  “I have so much!  My father left me a little purse of gold that I shall never need.”

“I would not take your father’s money,” answered Zorzi.  “But have no fear.  If I go at all, I shall do well enough.  Besides, there is a man in Venice—­” He stopped short, not wishing to speak of Zuan Venier.

“You must not make any condition,” she answered, not heeding the unfinished sentence.  “You must go at once.”

She rose as she spoke.

“Every minute I stay here makes it more dangerous for me to go back,” she said.  “I know that you will keep your promise.  We must say good-bye.”

He had risen, too, and stood facing her, his crutch under his arm.  In all her anxiety for his safety she had half forgotten that his wound was barely healed, and that he still walked with great difficulty.  And now, at the thought of leaving him she forgot everything else.  They had been so cruelly short, those few minutes of perfect happiness between the long misunderstanding that had kept them apart and the parting again that was to separate them, perhaps for months.  As they looked at each other, they both grew pale, and in an instant Zorzi’s young face looked haggard and his eyes seemed to grow hollow, while Marietta’s filled with tears.

“Good-bye!” she cried in a broken voice.  “God keep you, my dear love!”

Then her face was buried in the hollow of his shoulder and her tears flowed fast and burning hot.

CHAPTER XVII